


When We’re Older

by amandaskankovich



Category: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1992822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian Gallagher has had Mickey Milkovich erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.<br/>Thank you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around the end of season 3. Also spoilers in the comments for eventual events in the fic as well as for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so if you'd rather figure this out as it goes I recommend not reading them until the fic wraps.

He wakes up with the weirdest fucking headache. At first he just assumes he’s hungover but there’s a noticeable lack of nausea and dry mouth. None of the telltale signs of intoxication; there’s just this throbbing in his head, right there and it’s weird.  
He never just gets headaches like this.  
But anyway he pulls himself out of the sleeping bag on the bed he now had to share and makes an effort not to wake the sleeping pregnant woman next to him. Not out of any consideration for her—just because if he woke her up she might stay up and might try to force a conversation.  
He’d rather lick paint than talk to her about anything ever, though he’s not sure why. All things considered she seems okay, if kind of quiet.  
Not really what you’re expected to feel about your new bride but hey it’s not like the two of you married out of love or anything.  
He tells himself his lack of interest is because he really doesn’t know her at all.

 

He tells himself that and because it makes sense he doesn’t think about it any further.  
Why he can’t really look at her though without feeling something very close to revulsion deep inside of him…well that he can’t explain but he’s still not going to think about it any further.

 

There’s a lukewarm bottle of beer beside him and a pack of cigarettes. He takes a sip of the beer and realizes the pack is empty. He tosses it on the floor as punishment for this and heads for the bathroom, takes a piss, opens the medicine cabinet and finds no tylenol.  
Of course not.  
He walks downstairs to see his sister scrambling eggs for the rebound guy she met at his wedding nearly a month ago.  
She looks at him, “You want some?” she asks.  
The smell hits him at the same time as the realization that she’s apparently talking to him again (they’d had a fight over something that couldn’t be that important if he can barely remember it now and things had been weird between them for a few weeks now) and his head throbs a little more, “Nah I’ve got a headache. You got any aspirin?”  
"Nope," she says, "Sorry."  
Sorry? Now she was being almost sweet (for her) and truth be told it was weirding him out a little.

 

"Fine whatever," he says heading for the door, "I’m out of cigarettes, too. I’m going to the store."  
"I have cigarettes," she says quickly.  
He brushes her off, “I need something for my fucking head.”  
He’s already heading for the door. “Wait,” she says.  
"I’m not buying you any fucking tampons," he says, "ask your boyfriend."  
"I just wanna know what store you’re going to, asshole."  
He gives her a look, “The fuck does it matter? Whatever one sells smokes and tylenol and I can get to in the next 10 seconds.”  
"So…7 eleven?" She’s fingering some small yellow card in her hand he thinks about asking about but decides not to.  
"Yeah," he says, looking at her, "I guess. Probably?"  
"Okay," she says turning and walking back inside the house because she’d actually followed him out the fucking door. "Good." she says.  
"Glad you approve!" He calls back to her confused.  
*  
He’s going to walk to 7 eleven. He means to. It’s not really the closer one by a difference of a few minutes. He could take the car and make the whole thing moot but he doesn’t really think he can concentrate on driving with this obnoxious dull throb in his head and the cool air feels good on his face.  
So he’s walking and he’s going to walk to one store he fully intends to because the only other option he got shot at however long ago but as he’s thinking, “All the more reason. I’m not afraid of that fucking place,” he realizes he’s made a left instead of a right and the decision has been made for him.  
He doesn’t stop to look around, just walks right in and heads for the section with the overpriced aspirin and then walks to the register.  
That’s when he notices the new guy.  
Makes sense there’d be one. They probably needed extra help since Kash’d walked out on his wife.  
The guy’s reading a magazine at his register and that’s when Mickey pounds on the counter, not aggressively just…getting the guy’s attention.  
New Guy looks up.  
He’s got the palest fucking skin.  
It’s ridiculous is what it is.  
"Um…smokes?" Mickey asks.  
For a second Mickey’s worried he’s going to be carded because new guy he might be worried about making a good impression if he’s just started. Worried about what a hard ass like Linda will do to him if he’s not doing everything by the book and shit. Mickey doesn’t really feel like having to beat the shit out of this guy over a pack of cigarettes. It’s not worth the effort.  
(He thinks about fighting this guy and this ghost of arousal hits him right there in his stomach. Okay, he thinks.)  
It’s the arms probably.  
(Definitely.)  
The guy doesn’t even blink just reaches behind him and grabs the brand Mickey had pointed to. He then adds up the price of the cigarettes and the tylenol.  
It comes to over $15 and Mickey is reminded of why he usually just takes shit. He has no idea why he has even gone through the whole process of bringing the items to the register.  
There’s a $20 bill in his pocket he grabbed from home. Why?

 

He should just threaten the guy and take the shit. If he were dealing with Kash he would have been gone by now.  
He opens his mouth and what comes out instead of a threat is. “You got any slim jims in this shithole?”  
The redhead blinks and looks at him confused, “Slim jims?”  
Now it’s Mickey’s turn to be confused because who in the fuck has never heard of…,”You know long, thin, sticks of meat?”  
He looks at Mickey, none of this registering as familiar.  
Finally Mickey just sighs and says, “It’s probably with jerky and shit?”  
The redhead points to the back corner of the store. Sure enough there’s a whole display. He grabs two of them and walks back to the register.  
"Seriously I know you’re new but how the fuck do you not know what slim jims are? They’re like 80% of my diet."  
"Well that can’t be healthy," the redhead says reading the back of the ingredients on the tiny packaging and then says, "I’m not new though."  
"You’re not?"  
"I’ve worked here for years."  
"You’re shitting me."  
"Nope," he says putting Mickey’s items in a bag.  
"I used to come here all the time. How is it that I don’t know you?"  
"Not sure," the guy says and Mickey realizes the more he talks to this guy the more his headache just seems…kind of irrelevant. It’s weird.  
And then he says, “I think I would have remembered you.”  
It takes Mickey a second but he chokes out a, “Ditto.”  
"Ditto?" the guy looks at him.  
"It’s a word." Mickey says.  
"Oh I know it’s a word but I’ve never actually heard anybody use it outside of that Swayze movie."  
The redhead smiles then and…  
"I’m Ian," he says.  
Ian.  
Okay.  
Mickey reaches out and hands him the twenty.  
Ian looks at it and looks at him. Then he reaches into the bag and takes out one of the slim jims. Opens it and takes a bite, “Pretty good,” he says chewing, “Not sure if I could make it 80% of my diet but…”  
He hands Mickey the bag and his twenty.  
"Pretty good," he says, not taking his eyes off Mickey.  
Okay. Mickey thinks.  
Really fucking okay.  
*  
He’d followed the kid into the backroom, eyes zeroing in on a shelf of boxes on the opposite end, intent on grabbing on for purchase as the cashier nailed him from behind, but Ian’s hands are grabbing him now, flipping him around to face him as he backed him into the shelf instead. Mickey flinches against the look in the kid’s eyes, all wide, blown pupils, like he’s hungry for the sight of Mickey, but his hands feel fine, nice, firm on Mickey’s waist, and Mickey doesn’t push him off, instead his fingers slipping down to hover above Ian’s wrists.  
Ian backs him up until he hits the boxes and pulls a hand away to push some of them aside, making room for Mickeys body instead, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Mickey’s face the whole time, even as he drags his hands down to lift Mickey’s hips so he’s sitting on the shelf. “Fucking—” Mickey yelps, sticking ah and out to steady himself, sure that the shelf isn’t going to bear his weight. But Ian traces calming patterns along his hip, petting him as his other hand tugs his jeans and boxers down to Mickey’s ankles, only pulling back to stick his hand into one of the boxes and come back grasping a bottle of lube and a packet of condoms.  
"You keep that shit back here?" How often was this kid fucking random customers?  
Ian’s brow furrows at the question, as if confused, and he shakes his head, but doesn’t give an answer. Instead he rapidly slicks up a finger and presses it against Mickey’s hole. Mickey spreads his legs further to help him, biting his lip against the grunt that wants to escape at the feeling of Ian making gentle circles against his skin, and reaches around to pull at Ian’s zipper, shoving his pants down far enough for Mickey to grab at his ass. Ian hisses, leans back into Mickey’s palms, then presses forward to push his mouth against Mickey’s neck.  
Mickey lets him suck and bite along his collarbone, even wraps his legs around Ian’s waist to tug him closer, urging him on, lets him lick a hot line up the vein in his neck, arching to give him all the space he needs. Lets him open and close his mouth in wet, imprecise patterns up his neck and around his jaw and cheek and close over Mickey’s lips.  
Mickey opens his mouth for him, their tongues pressing together. Mickey sucks Ian’s upper lip into his mouth, tugging on it just slightly, loving the feeling of Ian happily humming into his mouth. Ian’s free hand is on his neck, in his hair, now wrapped completely around the back of Mickey’s head, and he feels safe, and he feels like he’s falling and he feels like he’s being caught, and Ian’s teeth brush teasingly against his lips, and there’s a shiver shooting up Mickey’s spine and he’s picturing Ian biting into his lip, pressing into him so hard it burns, and he can taste his own blood in his mouth, even though he isn’t bleeding, it tastes like Ian’s bitten him, but he hasn’t, he hasn’t, not yet, not now and—  
Mickey’s eyes shoot open and he shoves at Ian’s chest, watches the look of surprise and pain flick across his face as he stumbles backward. Mickey’s hand springs out to grab on to Ian’s shoulder, steadies him, but a second later he realizes it and changes his hand into a fist, smacks lightly against Ian’s arm. When he speaks he’s still breathless, panting. “Don’t—don’t fucking—don’t….”  
Ian stares at him a second, catching his breath, too. He licks his lips, drops his gaze to Mickey’s mouth. “No kissing?”  
Mickey nods furiously. “Yeah. None of that shit.”  
Ian gives a short nod, drops his gaze to Mickey’s waist, and takes the hand that had been around Mickey’s head to wrap around his dick instead. Mickey’s stomach feels cold and hollow, lips feeling naked. Like they want to kiss Ian. He couldn’t, though, right? Mickey had never——he’d never….  
"When was your first kiss?" Mandy had asked him a few years when they were high, the only two of their siblings not passed out on the living room floor.  
"I don’t fucking remember," Mickey had shot back defensively, and felt bad at the scowl that spread across Mandy’s face at that, because she had meant nothing by it, had only wanted to talk, but he couldn’t very well say, "Never. It’s never happened."  
He swallows a laugh at the thought of telling her now, “With a kid at the store three minutes after I first met him, with his finger inside me, his mouth tasting like home.”  
Mickey screws his eyes shut, avoids imagining what Ian’s face might look like right now, instead tries to focus all of his attention down to the sensation of Ian’s finger pressing in and twisting around, pushing in and out with gentle but insistent, confident pressure. He’s just about to yell at him to get a fucking move on when he adds a second finger, twisting just right, successfully punching a gasp from Mickey’s chest at how quickly he finds that spot inside him, that Mickey always struggles to find by himself.  
He’s just gifted, that’s all, Mickey tells himself. He’s just really good in bed. Ridiculously good in bed. Or. In shelf, as the case may be.  
When he repeats it later, when Ian is thrusting slowly but strongly inside of him, when Mickey trembles and whimpers like a wind chime, when Mickey comes with a cry, eyes damp and burning as he presses his head against Ian’s shoulder, when Ian’s hand dances up and down his spine, stroking the shaking out of his bones, holding them close, Mickey thinks, “This is normal. This is fine.”  
It’s his own fucking business if he doesn’t believe it.  
*  
Afterwards he notices Ian taking his time getting dressed.  
Then it occurs to him for whatever reason he’s taking his time, too…  
It was weird how…okay it felt. All the times he’d done this before he could never get dressed or get away fast enough.  
Ian notices his staring and smiles this smile.  
This goofy, “no big deal, it’s all okay” smile.  
How could he just do that after what they’d just done?  
But taking in that smile Mickey felt himself believing it.  
And that realization made him want to flee.

 

Right then Ian’s phone buzzed not for the first time in their brief encounter. Ian looks at the screen, makes a face, and puts the phone quickly back into his pocket.  
"Someone you’re avoiding?" Mickey asks.  
"Uh…" Ian laughs uncomfortably,"It’s just…this guy…"  
"Oh," Mickey says speeding up getting dressed.  
"Not a boyfriend," Ian says a little too quickly.  
"Dude, I don’t fucking care," Mickey says putting on the rest of his clothes.  
But…he does care…and he’s not sure why.  
"So um…," Mickey says finally, "I should go."  
Ian suddenly seemed to remember just where he was, “Oh yeah, me too. I have definitely gone over on my break.”  
They leave the backroom and Mickey heads for the exit but just as his hand touches the door he hears Ian call out, “Hey, I get off in a couple of hours…if you wanted to maybe hang out after?”  
What Mickey normally would have said was,”What the fuck do you think this was?” and shut this shit down here.  
But…  
"Yeah," he says, "sure whatever." and walks out the door.  
He’s already back at home before it occurs to him his headache is completely gone.  
*  
Two years after whatever the fuck the thing with Gallagher ended up being Mickey Milkovich came home drunk for the the whatver-th time in who the fuck is keeping track? Many days.  
His wife was sitting at the kitchen table with a cigarette. She was however many months pregnant and if he should give a shit about her smoking he didn’t.  
If it was his kid Milkovich’s are like cockroaches. A little second hand smoke wouldn’t squash it.  
Mandy was also sitting at the table. She looked at him with this expression that might be pity, might be contempt but either way he had no energy for it.  
He walked up to his room and laid facedown on his side of the bed.  
It was a few minutes before he noticed someone had followed him.  
For a second he worried it might be Svetlana but then he heard his sister’s voice.  
"This is just getting sad now."  
"Fuck off," he said not looking up.  
"It’s been weeks. It’s over. You made a choice. Fucking live with it."  
"Fuck off," he said again.  
He could not begin to deal with her.  
He could not begin to deal with what had happened to him earlier. The entire reason he’d needed to get drunk in the first place.  
He could understand that Ian was still pissed.  
But…to look at him like that…  
"You need to let it go, Mick," and then her voice actually got softer, "Trust me, okay?"  
Ian had looked at him like…  
"Ian’s not coming back. Okay?"  
"Yeah," Mickey said finally, "I know."  
Mandy got quiet and then he heard her say, “No, you don’t.”  
He got up and looked at her, “I fucking know, okay?”  
"You went to see him, didn’t you?"  
Mickey didn’t say anything.  
Mandy made a face, “Oh Jesus…you’re not going to do that again, are you? Mickey that’s not a good idea…You can’t just go to his house.”  
"I didn’t go to his house," Mickey said finally.  
He noticed the relief on Mandy’s face for two seconds before he said, “I went to the Kash and Grab.”

 

"Jesus, Mickey!" Mandy said, "You want to get a fucking restraining order on you!?"  
"Restraining order? I needed fucking beer!"  
"We have beer here!" Mandy yelled walking out of his room.  
"Well maybe I didn’t want that beer!" Mickey said, "How was I supposed to know he’d be such a fucking bitch about the whole thing!" He sat up and grabbed a cigarette out of the pack he’d been keeping in the front pocket of his shirt and felt around for a lighter.  
Looking at Mickey like…  
Pretending he didn’t…  
Mandy walked back into his room holding something that looked like a business card in her hand. Mickey saw her hesitate for just a second before forcing the card into his hand.  
"Don’t go to his job again, Mick. Please."  
He looked down at the card.  
Read it.  
Then let the unlit cigarette fall out from his mouth and to the floor.  
In tiny crisp type on a faded yellow background it said:

 

Ms. Mandy Milkovich:  
Ian Gallagher has had Mickey Milkovich erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.  
Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

The old guy who was apparently the Doctor had looked at him sympathetically and said, “I’m very sorry. You really shouldn’t have seen this.”  
The whole way there Mickey had told himself it was probably all just some stupid joke.  
He’d reminded himself of the story Ian had told him once about faking his father’s death.  
They’d staged a funeral and everything.  
And if Lip was as smart as everyone was always saying how hard could it have been to print that card? Set up a fake website? Pay some homeless lady to answer the 1800 number and cheerfully say, “Lacuna Inc! How may I direct your call?”  
It could have all just been a lie, easily.  
A stupid, cruel, insane lie.

 

It could have been.

 

But he went to the address on the website and walked inside and there was a waiting room with actual people waiting in it.  
No one he’d recognized. No random alibi patrons or freshly showered crack heads he’d walk past digging cans out of corner dumpsters.  
Just sad looking strangers filling out forms, some holding boxes filled with random items.  
Some crying.  
The receptionist handed him a clipboard even though he’d called ahead and had an appointment already.  
"You still need to fill this out." She said.  
He saw her inspecting his knuckle tattoos (like the Doctor would later) as he took the clipboard from her but if his appearance made her at all nervous she didn’t show it.  
Just smiled and asked him politely to have a seat.  
And then after waiting for nearly twenty minutes the Doctor (Mierzwiak) could see him.

 

He walked into the office and sat down across from the white haired man with the sympathetic smile. Like anyone’s good grandfather.  
He offered his apologies to “Mr. Milkovich” for what he’d gone through over the past couple of days.  
"It couldn’t have been easy."  
"It must have been quite a shock."  
"You should not have seen this." He’d said holding the small card he’d sent that had taken a sledgehammer to Mickey’s entire world just like that.

 

It was awhile before Mickey could speak. Before he could finally think of something to ask. Or just decide what of the million different racing thoughts he wanted to ask first.

 

"Did he say why?"

The Doctor replied, “Our records are confidential. I can’t tell you why.”

Mickey considered briefly reaching across the desk and beating a reason out of Gramps but the Doctor continued to speak,”Suffice it to say that Mr. Gallagher was unhappy and he, uh, wanted to move on.”  
At that Mickey had bitten hard on the inside lining of his check.  
Hard enough and long enough to taste faint drops of blood.  
"We provided a way for him to do that," the doctor said.  
"And you can’t reverse it?" Mickey asked.  
The doctor shook his head at that and said, “No, no we can’t.”  
Done is done.

 

He’d buried his face into the palm of his hands for a very long second and then something occurred to him.  
He asked the Doctor, “Did you know he was seventeen?”  
Mierzwiak’s eyes grew wide. He blinked.  
Mickey continued, “I mean…you’d have to be eighteen to do this right? Get your fucking memory erased? That’s brain surgery, right?”  
The Doctor blinked again, “Not…exactly…I mean, I suppose, technically…”

 

Mickey continued, “They don’t let kids go to the fucking zoo without parents’ permission. You can’t give them fucking aspirin in the nurse’s office without that shit. I only met Fiona a couple of times but I know there’s no fucking way she would have gone for—”  
"Mr. Gallagher…is eighteen…." the Doctor finally stammered out.  
Mickey looked at him.   
Shook his head slowly, “He just turned seventeen like two months ago.”  
Mickey took in the look on the Doctor’s face.

 

"What did he do?" Mickey asked, "Come in here with a fake i.d.? You don’t make sure of that shit?"  
Mickey looked around the tiny office, scratched his neck, “Well,” he said, “somebody’s gonna get sued.”

 

The Doctor went over to his computer and began typing something.  
"Didn’t this place used to be a Planned Parenthood?" Mickey asked.  
"I, uh, don’t know," the Doctor said continuing his nervous frantic clicking and typing, "We have an outside company do our location scouting."  
The Doctor looked at his computer screen and then picked up his phone, “This’ll just be a moment,” he said looking at Mickey.  
Mickey had shrugged at that and let the Doctor make his call.  
He guessed maybe he was expected to leave the room.  
But there was no chance in hell of that.

 

There was frantic whispering.   
Some accusations.  
The phone was slammed down.  
The Doctor looked at Mickey, “He was…recommended to us…by an acquaintance of one of our…donors. Our…technology is still fairly new and our funding is very limited.”  
Mickey considered the only guy Ian knew with close to the kind of money that got people to look the other way.  
"Some guy named Ned?" Mickey asked.  
The doctor said nothing for a very long minute.  
"What do you want?" he asked finally, "Money?"  
Mickey considered this.  
Of course he wanted money.  
He looked at the doctor.  
He could take this place for everything and he was tempted.  
He’d wanted to burn it to the ground from the second he’d accepted it was all real.

 

"You already said you don’t have much of that." Mickey said finally.  
They probably had more than his family did though.  
It wouldn’t take much for that.  
Take a check.  
Mickey thought.  
Walk out the door.  
Maybe he would have.  
If there weren’t something he’d already made up his mind he wanted more.

 

"What do you want?" the doctor had asked.  
They’d already established they couldn’t give him that.  
But they could provide things.

 

"You ever do pro bono?" Mickey asked.  
Mierzwiak looked at him and seemed a little confused, “Uh..yes…he said. A few a year. Victims of trauma primarily. We have a …charity we work with.”  
Mickey looked at him and something clicked in the doctor’s head.  
"So…you want…"  
"I’m not happy." Mickey interrupted him.  
"I want to move on."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will deal with the erasure.

He was told to go home and to empty his home and his life of Ian.  
And he asked the good doctor, “Why?”  
He began to explain and was cut off.  
That wouldn’t be necessary.  
There was nothing left of Ian in his home.  
He’d brought himself into Mickey’s space/life/world/whatever and when he took himself out he took everything.  
It was that fucking easy.  
They didn’t have shared pictures, clothes or c.d.s they’d bought together.  
They’d never leant each other books.  
When the doctor had given him this look he’d thought about saying he could probably dig up some old bedsheets with Gallagher’s dried cum the doctor could have if he wanted.  
If physical evidence of some kind was so important to say that something mattered.  
But he’d lost one of his teeth once.  
It had been kicked out of his mouth after he’d looked at his dad the wrong way.  
He could reach his tongue back and feel inside it.  
The hole.  
Right there.  
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  
He’d heard that somewhere.  
He asked the doctor though, “Did Ian bring anything?”  
Because he was curious.  
Because what was there to bring?  
But that was confidential.  
Of course.  
Mickey’d stuck his tongue in the hole in his mouth.  
Swirled his tongue in it.  
Then told him they couldn’t do the procedure at his house.  
They’d have to give him a bed there.  
The doctor not really being in a position to argue.  
Said they’d allow this.


	4. Chapter 4

Here’s the first of many things gun to his head he will never ever remember:

 

They sat him in a big leather chair, attached multi-colored wires to his temples and his wrists and his chest, until he heard a faint beeping noise, his own pulse in the background. He craned his head around to see a monitor on the wall behind him, a shifting, pulsing picture of a brain, red and blue and purple and black, colors fading in and out. He was told, “Face straight, please.” There was a tape recorder on a table in front of him, a doctor on the other side of that, and a female assistant in the corner of the room with her eyes fixed on the monitor above Mickey’s head. The doctor pushed a glass of water in his direction along with a large white pill. Mickey swallowed it down, wanting the sleep to come on fast.  
"So tell us," he asked, "How you first met Ian."  
He stared at the recorder.  
"Why the fuck does that matter?"

 

He talked to him about using the words to make a map.  
They’d travel the road he’d lay out for them for the erasure process later.

 

Again he asked, “How did you first meet Ian?”  
"Um…" he finally began. "It’s not that easy."

 

He noticed them writing this down and he’d wonder what they were writing. Why they would need to write anything if it was all being recorded.  
This wasn’t therapy and he’d never agreed to be analyzed.  
But he took another sip of the water and kept talking.

 

"It’s not like I ever actually met him. He was kind of just always there. I mean…he’s a Gallagher. Everyone just kind of knows them in the neighborhood. Or knows about them. Mostly because of fucking Frank. Their dad. Mom took off awhile ago. She was fucking crazy."  
He didn’t look at the woman taking notes. Or the doctor.  
He just stared at the table or stared at his hands.

 

"I’d…I’d probably seen him around. Little red head fucker always following his brother. No one ever shut the fuck up about Lip. And for awhile me and him—Lip, not Ian—were always in the same class ‘til I started getting held back. Um…anyway when I was ten my dad got locked up for a year for assault or some shit I can’t really remember. S-so…my mom had me and my brothers and Mandy all in the house and it was just her and my dad wasn’t there so she started working at this chicken place during the day because we needed fucking money and it was summer so she needed to leave us somewhere because she was convinced we’d burn the house down or kill each other if we stayed in the house alone without her and neighbors kept complaining about us running wild like we were fucking…stray dogs or something. Anyway she’d drop Mandy off at my aunt’s but my aunt wouldn’t let me and my brothers stay because I don’t know one time Iggy broke her new TV because Colin dared him to jump off it and she said we took money out of her purse. Because we did. But Mandy did too she just blamed it on us and my aunt always believed her because Mandy was the baby and a girl. Anyway I think someone at Ma’s job told her little league was starting and she was like, ‘Okay you’re fucking doing this.’ None of us even liked baseball but she was like, ‘Shut the fuck up, it’ll teach you fundamentals or some shit’ so she signed us up and it was…okay for a little while. Anyway we were split up by ages and Ian ended up in my group. So…yeah that’s probably how we met. I guess."

 

"And what did you feel about him when you first met him?"  
"What does that mean?"  
"How did meeting Ian back then make you feel? Best as you can tell us what you remember?"  
"I didn’t feel anything."  
"Nothing at all?"  
"He was just a kid I barely knew. Can we move the fuck on now?"  
His stomach hurt. That’s what he remembered.  
The kid made his stomach hurt.

 

He wondered what Ian had said about him. His head had started to pound. Maybe it was those node things sending an electric current into him. He wondered whether they hurt Ian’s head, too, or if he felt relief, this last time he was ever gonna have to think about Mickey.  
And…and okay. The knot in Mickey’s stomach loosened a little at the thought. His bones fucking ached and they’d been aching for months…well. years if he was being honest with himself. It had been a fucking marathon, keeping up with Ian for however long this shot had been. Maybe. Maybe after this Mickey could sleep.  
Sleep. That would be nice.  
Maybe that pill would kick in soon.  
“What’s the first thing he said to you, that you remember?”

 

Mickey could…Mickey could think of a few things, and the girl with the notebook, watching the monitor, clicked her pen and scribbled things down before Mickey even opened his mouth, but he knew the doctor was trying to get Mickey past the beginning, past the end. So he thought about it, the first thing that Ian had said to him, the first thing in the last few years anyway, and a laugh bubbled out of Mickey’s chest, surprising his own ears with the ugly, rough sound. He watched the doctor and the assistant girl frown in curiosity at him, so he cleared his throat and mocked Ian’s Boy Scout tone: “Have some civic pride!”  
The doctor smiled, sort of. Little quirk of the lip, plastic-looking. Mechanical and practiced. Almost like. Almost like he was laughing at an old worn-out joke. Like he’d heard that exact phrase before.  
Mickey heard his pulse spike on the monitor and swallowed thickly, trying to calm himself down. So Ian had remembered those words, too. So what. Ian didn’t know them anymore.  
"When was the last time you and Ian spoke?"  
"In my room. He came over said he was done. Walked out. That was it."  
That wasn’t it.  
That wasn’t even really the last time.  
He’d gone to the Kash and Grab a few weeks after that. He’d figured Ian just needed some time to cool off. He’d really thought he could go back in there and talk to him and things could be okay again.  
He’d been a fucking idiot.  
And yeah, he’d expected Ian to be mad. He would have actually preferred mad because mad was something.  
"Get the fuck away from me." He’d been expecting.  
Or just pissed off impenetrable silence he’d been expecting.  
What had he got instead though?  
There wasn’t any anger in his eyes.  
There was nothing there.  
Just a friendly smile and a, “Can I help you sir?”  
And Mickey had tried to laugh it off, “Can I help you sir?”  
But Ian had just shrugged it off and repeated, “Can I help you dude?”  
And he was going to say something. He was going to say, “Stop fucking with me.” If Linda hadn’t come rushing in holding a squirming newborn, “Hey,” she’d said, “You gonna buy something or not?”  
He’d looked at her. “No.”  
"Then go. Now.”  
"She must have been…watching on the security cameras."  
Something clicked then in Mickey’s brain. “You send her one of those cards?”  
"Send who?" The doctor asked.  
It was getting hard to look at the old guy. Mickey blinked for a very long minute.  
"Linda…" he said when the thought returned to him.  
The blonde woman looked into a file (Ian’s file? He could have grabbed it…why didn’t he try?) and in a loud whisper said, “Mrs. Karib.”  
The doctor looked at Mickey and nodded but then cleared his throat and asked, “What does ‘food’ and ‘Ian’ make you think of?”  
"What?"  
"I know some of these questions might seem a bit random but there is a strong link between food and memory and certain questions and certain prompts illicit strong responses necessary for—" Mickey cut the doctor off.  
“Pringles. Slim jims. Fucking snickers bars. Pizza. Shit people eat. Shit I used to steal from his store all the time.”  
He’d noticed the doctor’s lack of reaction to Mickey’s confession and it sunk in that he knew this already.  
He knew all of this already.  
"What does ‘rain’ and ‘Ian’ make you think of?"  
"I don’t fucking know. Sometimes when we hung out it would rain. There you go."  
Ian didn’t want him to leave. Not yet.  
"You’re going to get pneumonia if you go out there."  
"It’s not that bad."  
"It’s fucking pouring."  
He’d already had a cold. He’d already been sneezing. All day long Ian had been shooting him these looks. Like what was Mickey even doing at work? Why wasn’t he home and in bed? And then mid-way through his shift the rain had started. The entire sky had just opened up on top of them.  
And now the store was closing and the rain still hadn’t let up.  
"Okay," Mickey had said, "okay, I’m out."  
"Wait," Ian had said and this had surprised him. Why was he delaying him getting home and getting into bed? Isn’t that what he’d wanted hovering over Mickey all day like some kind of mother hen?  
"You don’t have a jacket, do you?"  
"It wasn’t raining earlier, remember?"  
He’d been impatient and his body hurt. His head hurt. He could barely breathe.  
Ian took his hoodie off a hook and handed it to him.  
"Here. Take it."  
Mickey had stared at him a long minute. “Won’t you just end up sick then?”  
Ian smirked at him. “I’ve been hanging around with your germy ass all day. I’m going to get sick anyway.”  
Mickey pulled it on and put the hood over his head before looking back at Ian. “Kind of thin, isn’t it?”  
Ian smiled at him. “Better than nothing, probably.”  
He’d stood in front of Mickey then and slipped something into his pocket.  
It was a bottle of Nyquil.  
"Come on," Ian said. "I’m gonna walk you home."  
"I can get myself home," Mickey had responded.  
"Yeah, I’m not the one who’s going to explain to Mandy how I let her brother pass out and drown in a ditch because I let him walk home alone when he was at death’s door."  
"I’m not at fucking death’s door," Mickey had said while following him out.  
"What does ‘summer’ and ‘Ian’ make you think of?"  
"Huh?"

 

He’d closed his eyes just for a second.  
A very long second.  
He blinked and the doctor asked again.  
"What does ‘summer’ and ‘Ian’ make you think of?"  
"Um..hot dogs…apple pie…fourth of july…all that shit."  
"Mr. Milkovich, I understand it must be getting harder to concentrate but if you could please try and take the questions seriously…"  
The smell of grass.  
He licked the sweat off Ian’s chest making his way down lower.  
When out of nowhere Ian had asked, “Do you even like fireworks or do you think we’re just brainwashed, too?”  
"The fuck?" Mickey had said, looking up.  
"I don’t know. I’m just wondering."  
"You’re just high is what you are," Mickey responded.  
"Oh yeah," Ian said, "Totally. But my question remains."  
"Everyone like fireworks, dumbass. Even kids who blow their hands off with ‘em. Next year they’re right out there. Holding sparklers with their teeth."  
Ian, high off his ass, had found this visual hilarious, laughing until he was gasping for air.  
"Shouldn’t a patriot like you love fireworks? Doesn’t that stars and stripes shit get your dick all hard?" He reached over and took the joint out of Ian’s hand and placed the tip in his mouth, inhaling deep.  
"Oh, yeah," Ian said reaching over and rubbing his hand across Mickey’s stomach. "Totally."  
"He gets high and he starts…talking like a surfer," Mickey mumbled to the doctor.

 

"What does ‘winter’ and ‘Ian’ make you think of?"

 

Last winter waiting at a bus stop after getting out of work out of nowhere Ian had leaned over, his breath hot in Mickey’s ear and asked:  
"If you start blowing me right now out here you think your lips would freeze to my dick?"  
And Mickey started laughing. In the memory and months later in the doctor’s room.  
He couldn’t stop. Not until he looked and saw the doctor staring. He took a deep breath. Calmed himself down.

 

"Building snowmen," he responded. "Pissing our names in the snow. Fucking on a bear skin rug."

 

They gave him a look but let it go and moved on.  
"Okay. Now I want you to think of the following colors, in regards to Ian, and talk about anything they remind you of. I’ll go one by one. Red.”  
His hair in the sunlight. His blood on my father’s hands. His blood on mine. His hair in between my fingers, soft to the touch. “Smooth.”  
“Blue.”  
Ian’s fingers on his bare shoulder. “I like this shirt on you.”

 

Mickey looked down at his tank top, smudged with dirt and dust. “It’s old,” he said. Mickey could see his own stomach rising and falling faster and faster as Ian’s hand dipped from his chest to his waist, over the shirt. “It looks good on you.” Ian’s fingers settled on his stomach, rubbing back and forth, eyes completely focused on Mickey, explosions on the television screen long forgotten.  
The doctor was looking at him expectantly now. “Van Damme,” Mickey finally said.  
“Purple.”  
“Fingernail.” The quick answer surprised Mickey as much as it obviously did the doctor, not to mention the assistant, who hurried to write down her note, wide eyes disappearing behind her notepad.

 

Ian was sucking on his fingers when Mickey showed up for his shift. “You practicing or something?”  
Ian had given him a half-hearted glare at that before pulling his fingers out of his mouth to show Mickey. “Nah, jammed my hand in the fucking freezer door like a dumbass.”  
His first finger, from the tip to the first knuckle, was purple, practically visibly throbbing. Mickey’s hands jerked up, halfway to grabbing Ian’s hand, before he caught himself, but it was no good. They just hovered in the middle of the air for no real purpose, when it was obvious judging from the way Ian’s face broke out into a grin what his stupid body had tried to do without his brain’s consent. Mickey shoved his hands back into his pockets and felt himself blush hotly, avoiding Ian’s eyes.  
“Wanna do a freezer check?” Ian suggested, voice teasing.  
Mickey nodded and started to lock up the front door and flip the sign, and when he finished and turned, Ian was already at the freezer door, injured hand reaching for the handle. “No—lemme,” Mickey called out, walking quickly past Ian, head ducked. “I don’t need you breaking all of your fucking fingers. They come in handy,” he added on lamely, holding the door open for Ian to step inside first.  
“Fingernail, dammit,” Mickey said again, wanting the next prompt to come the fuck on already. He wanted the freezer memory to go away.  
“White.”  
Skin. “Freckles.”  
“Black.”  
Ian’s pupils blown wide as he inched toward him, mouth open, pure in purpose as it approached his.  
“Gun.” The word shouldn’t have felt like a comfort, shouldn’t have reminded him of having Ian warm next to him under his blanket, shouldn’t have given him that squeamish excited feeling of something unknown and new shooting its way into his life. But it did.  
“When was the first time you were intimate?” Mickey felt his heart rate pick up at the question, at the closeness to what he had just been thinking about. Could they…could they tell already, read him already, see what he was thinking without him saying anything? Could they tell because Ian—fuck Ian, his mind whispered. No, you don’t get to do that anymore.  
Mickey shrugged, faking nonchalance. Obviously failing. “Couple of years ago. He broke into my house. We fought. Stuff happened. The end.” The end.  
“And when was the last time you were intimate?”  
Mickey didn’t want to think about that. Mickey didn’t want to share that. “It was in a basement. Before..it was before a wedding.” When Mickey blinked he could see Ian’s face above his, could feel his breath panting hot against his neck. God he felt like he was falling fast. It was a battle to make out the doctor’s next words, but he forced his eyes open and focused.

 

“What was the best time you were intimate?”  
Mickey cleared his throat. “Same answer as the last one.” What had Ian said to that question when he was sitting here? Did he say the same thing? Was it the same for him? Was the last time the best? Had it only gotten better and better and better each time so that he wanted more and more and more, like he was the opposite of addicted, the high never getting weaker but stronger and stronger and stronger with the same amount of Mickey? No. No, it couldn’t have been the same answer, it couldn’t have been as good for him as it was for Mickey, because otherwise…. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. Fuck Ian. Fuck him. No, you don’t get to do that anymore.  
“Red,” the doctor prompted.  
His hair in the basement light. His lips under mine.  
Wait. Why was the doctor repeating questions?  
“The best time you were intimate.”  
His lips under mine. Red.  
Mickey shook his head, wanting the fucking images in his head to stop swimming around like fish caught in a whirlpool, just long enough for him to land on something, but when he blinked a few times the doctor was just writing stuff down, like he’d answered again, but Mickey hadn’t spoken again, had he?  
“Okay. I’m going to name items and you just tell me the first memory or first impression that comes to your mind. Okay?”  
Mickey didn’t nod or give an answer, just maintained eye contact with the guy. It wasn’t even to be rude. He just….he was feeling so tired, worn-through by this point. He needed to sleep. He needed to fall away from this.  
“Cigarettes.”  
Ian’s lips hot against his. The taste of smoke, nothing in comparison to the taste of his mouth. “Van.”  
“Alcohol.”  
The pleasant-painful relief of the burn of the stuff hitting his stomach, then the pleasant nothing that followed. Ian stabbing through the fog with his words, “look at me,” “that I don’t matter to you,” “oh, he speaks,” like a knife splitting apart Mickey’s bubble of nothing.  
Mickey felt his chin slip, his neck bending, but he jerked to alertness and looked at the doctor. “Alone,” he answered.  
The doctor spoke again. “Gift.”  
His lips red under mine. His voice saying, “Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mick, Mick.” His fingers on my skin. Mickey opened his mouth to speak. “Ian.”

 

When the blackness faded, into little spots of light at first, then bigger blurry images, Mickey blinked over and over and over until the colors coalesced into something that made sense.  
And it did make sense.  
It made too much.  
And he blinked just for a second he let himself slip away and then all of those questions: they were gone. Seeing that card that gut punch to the stomach: gone. Walking into Lacuna: Gone. Meeting the doctor: Gone. Ian, “Can I help you sir?”: Gone. Linda pushing him: Out. Gone, gone, gone, all so quick he didn’t fight it. All so quick he barely even realized he was slipping deeper and deeper down into a hole until—he was in his house. Ian was there. “I didn’t come here for you.” But he’d wanted to see him. So happy he was so happy.  
He motioned for Ian to follow him.  
He did.  
He stood in his room, behind his bed, looking at Ian standing in his doorway. Ian in a scarf. Ian in a cold smile.  
“I’m done. Don’t look for me. I mean it.”  
Mickey stood there breathing.  
Heard himself say, “Don’t.”  
And he tried to remind himself what was going on this: This had all already happened.  
Just an echo.  
That’s all it was.  
He watched Ian walk away.  
He sat on his bed.  
Felt the tears that were not tears because this was just an echo and that was it.  
There was a shadow of his sister saying, “Really that’s all you’re gonna say to him?”  
Her look of disgust. “You’re a fucking pussy.”  
Fuck it.  
Fuck her.  
Fuck him.  
He took a breath. He was so ready for this.  
He felt it.  
And then he blinked.  
And that feeling in his chest like something was dying inside him?  
Gone.


	5. Chapter 5

He tries to remember how he thought it would be.  
And he can’t.  
Inside his mind he thinks of the day in his memory and he goes back to being six years old putting his hand on a blank sheet of paper and taking a crayon and outlining his hand. Then taking another crayon and shading in the shape that he’d created.  
And he thinks: the outside is what actually happened and the hand I created is the memory I created.  
My actual hand is my hand but my drawing is my hand too.  
He doesn’t know if this makes any sense.  
And he can’t remember anymore how they explained it to him.  
How it would be.  
And he realizes it’s gone now.  
That day when they told him how it would be.

Because he’s trying to bring it back and there’s just static. Or strange looking people. A smooth nothing where their faces should be.  
So he doesn’t really have any choice but to keep walking forward following the map that he created.

And he knows he’s looking for Ian but he’s also walking away from him.  
He’s running away from him as fast as he can.  
That’s what he’s doing, right?  
He’s in a church.  
In a suit that doesn’t fit right.  
And he’s smoking his third cigarette in as many minutes.  
And in retrospect he knows it now: He was waiting for him.  
It wasn’t a surprise at all when he came bursting in.  
(Because ever since that first time he’d always been waiting and Ian had never let him down)

"You give me shit for wanting a boyfriend or whatever—"  
But he’s heard this all before.  
So why hear it again?  
If there are rules to how this goes he doesn’t remember them anymore.  
What can he remember? He’s just so fucking happy.  
Ian’s here.  
So fuck the rules he doesn’t know them anyway.

He could hear it all again but why endure, “If you give half a shit about me.”  
And those eyes all teary he can’t do anything with that.  
If instead he could just kiss him sooner?  
So he kisses him sooner.

Fast and deep and pulling him closer. Sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. Nipping it with his teeth.  
And Ian sliding his hand up his back stroking as he brings it back down.  
Smiling at him. Reaching up and brushing his cheek and…  
Don’t think about it.  
He presses his lips against Ian’s hand and Ian still smiling but…  
Ian pulls away.  
"You never did that," he says.

And Mickey said (not said not really, a handprint of Mickey “said” to a handprint of Ian)  
"So?"  
"You’re going to waste time with fantasies," Ian replied, "You don’t want to do that."  
Ian walked over to him his breath hot in his ear, “Not with things you were looking forward to having again.”

In real time: They would have been naked already.

"Trust me," Ian says pulling them backwards and Mickey tugged his jacket off.  
Licked his lips.  
"Or trust you," Ian replied, "Since I guess I’m you."  
"Now who’s wasting time?" Mickey asked.

Ian replied, “Aren’t you listening?”

Ian smiled and said, “Still you.”


	6. Chapter 6

Mickey was pressed up against the wall, crevices digging into his back, but he didn’t care then and he didn’t care now, wrapping his legs around Ian’s torso and sucking at his neck. The sweat under his hands was building and building, his grasp on Ian’s shoulder slipping every time he pushed in and out of Mickey’s body. He clutched on harder, nails digging in. 

"Mine," Ian huffed out hoarsely against Mickey’s ear. "Mine."  
Mickey nodded furiously and brought his hand up to guide Ian back into a kiss. “Yes,” he breathed into Ian’s mouth, fingers tracing along his jaw. “Yes.”

That smile. That smug, triumphant, relieved, happy, fucking happy one spread across Ian’s mouth now.  
He wanted to lean in, kiss it like he had—-before. Before. Because this, this wasn’t real.  
Mickey shut his eyes and leaned back against the wall, inhaling shakily. Ian stopped in his movements. “What’s wrong?” 

Mickey shook his head and reached his hand forward without opening his eyes, searched for Ian’s mouth with his fingers, wanting to trace that smile again. It wasn’t there anymore. “Don’t—-don’t stop. Please,” Mickey whispered. Don’t stop smiling, please, Ian.

"I have to, Mickey," Ian said, brushing a hand along Mickey’s neck before stepping back. Mickey opened his eyes to watch him pull his clothes up and on, his face going from flat, empty, back to that happy relaxed confidence Mickey remembered. Mickey swallowed hard, tugging on his clothes while Ian lit up a cigarette. "So what’re we gonna do? Gonna tell everybody to leave?" 

Mickey opened his mouth to say his line, but what came out was, “The fuck did you get off thinking it would be that easy?” Ian, fake Ian, head Ian, deflated then, performance abandoned. “What, we go out there holding hands, my dad and his friends beat us to death, we get matching tombstones? That how it went in your head, when you did this?”  
Ian smiled grimly. “No, I couldn’t make you do it even when I dreamed you up.”  
Mickey’s stomach knotted up. “I thought you were supposed to just be me talking to myself.” 

Ian shrugged, sucked on the cigarette for a second, and Mickey wanted to scream at him to stop wasting time, because his sister was going to walk in and then—  
"Would it have been so much worse, going out there and facing them, than what we have now?" Ian—dream Ian, head Ian, Mickey Ian, whatever—asked, staring down at the cigarette that he was supposed to have passed Mickey a full minute ago now.

Would it have been so much worse, going out there to die? “Oh. Oh, right. ‘Cause I’m dead to you anyway, right? Yeah, I must have meant so much to you, ‘cause I was so easy to just wipe away.” Mickey’s eyes were stinging and he hated himself, he hated himself, he hated himself so much he wanted to let the earth swallow him whole, but no, it was just his brain swallowing him, just his own damn self staring him in the face no matter which way he turned. There was no escaping this.  
"You’re doing the same damn thing, Mickey, so you’re really not in any position to judge me." 

Mickey slammed his palm into Ian’s shoulder, shoving him back before grabbing onto it again to steady him. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to do, Ian! I run, you fight. That’s what you do. You don’t to get to do dumb shit like this.”  
"It’s not dumb," Ian weakly defended.  
Mickey stole the cigarette then, inhaling so deep he started to cough from the burn, and stupid Ian’s hands came out to rub his back, his chest, above his heart. “Cutting away chunks of yourself just to get rid of me. Yeah, real fucking smart. That ain’t you. I’m the pussy, remember? You’re the—”

The place where Ian had been rubbing a circle on Mickey’s chest suddenly felt cold from lack of touch. He looked up and saw.  
No one. Nothing. An empty basement.  
The door opened. “Everyone’s waiting for you,” Mandy said.  
"I’m having a fucking smoke, is that all right?" Mickey snapped back, putting the cigarette back between his lips, tasting something that wasn’t meant to be there. Not anymore.

Ian.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter (just in case) for blood, abuse and implied violence. The events of 3x06 are also referenced but not in explicit detail.

He decided it was a lot like waking up suddenly from a dream or maybe…it was like falling backwards into a pool?   
When the shock finally wore off once you were in it you were in it.  
Feeling it.  
And awake.

So even if what he was experiencing was just a repeat of the past and even if some of the details were probably wrong because whatever they were using to build this image (whatever your brain uses to make memories) you can never get the details exactly right? Right? You can’t keep everything no matter how much you may want to. And some things you can never ever get out of your head no matter how hard you try.  
You forget things and you replace things. You say the shirt he was wearing was red when in reality you don’t remember the color at all. In reality maybe he was just shirtless.

(But you’d remember him being shirtless. You remember the look and feel if his skin better than you remember yours.  
Ian has freckles on his eyelids.  
Mickey counted them once.)

Anyway even if the details aren’t right exactly once you’re in the moment you are in it. So he can feel the sun.  
He can feel the hangover.  
He can feel how much he doesn’t.  
There’s this merciful numbness and he is not going to…think.  
Not stare directly at it.  
He is not going to stare directly at it.  
He is just only going to be this much sober for…ever.  
And he’ll live.  
Do what he’s told.  
And live.  
But then he blinks.

Thinks.  
Counts down from 3,2,1.

"So it’s true? You’re getting married?"  
Fuck.

Just like before though: he’s not going to talk.  
He waits for the crash of the bottle.  
But not like before and instead and maybe this is what he would have wanted… Ian kneels in front of him.

"Hey," he reaches out and touches his forehead to Mickey’s, "I know I have an ass kicking scheduled in 10 but…think maybe we can mind meld?"

Maybe what he wanted Ian’s forehead pressed agains his, “I could just sit next to you.”  
"Be quiet with you."  
And Mickey says, “That’s not how this works.”  
Ian’s eyes darkened a little, “Why do you always have to shit on everything good?”  
Ian backs away from him, “We could have just had a nice moment.”  
Mickey walked toward him eyes already burning just like before, “I don’t want a nice fucking moment.”  
Just like before his fist goes into Ian’s chest.

I want you.

He is not going to say.  
His foot to Ian’s face.  
Ian’s blood on his shoes.  
But he is not going to say.  
He stared at Ian’s blood on his shoes.  
Ian’s blood on Ian’s face.

Mickey blinked, and then there was blood on Ian’s chest, too. The sunlight still burned, but from outside now, through a window, and Ian’s half-naked body burned with it, flame-white. Mickey watched his chest rise and fall rapidly. He wondered for a second if he was breathing as quickly as Ian was, but it was hard to tell. His nose felt clogged up, and every time he inhaled he smelled copper, smelled his own blood trickling down the side of his face. He felt faint, like he was going to pass out to blackness, and maybe he should have, maybe that would have been better, but he blinked, kept blinking until he felt like his eyes could stay open on their own. His chest felt empty, raw, torn-out. Like he didn’t even have a heart in there anymore.

He was wheezing a little, he realized now, breathing like he had asthma. He wasn’t out of breath, though. It wasn’t like he was breathing to get oxygen in his lungs.

He was breathing because soon he was going to stop. It was his right now, this air, this body, this awful cracking noise every time he made the effort to breathe to keep himself awake for one more second. In a minute it wouldn’t be. His dad would see to that. But for now, it was his.  
"Mickey," Ian whispered, so soft Terry probably couldn’t hear it.   
He couldn’t look him in the eyes, though. He couldn’t look to see how his beautiful face had probably been beaten bloody, too. “Mick,” Ian whispered again, and knowing him he probably wanted to fucking make a plan, think of a way they could get out of this together, think of a way they could live. Ian never knew what Mickey did. 

They were dead. They were finished. Ian had planned on leaving earlier, and he wouldn’t have been here if Mickey had just let him, wouldn’t have been here if Mickey hadn’t been so fucking dumb in the first place in thinking he could have one good night, could have anything good. Mickey had..Mickey had killed him.   
"Mick," Ian whispered again, and Mickey was vaguely aware that the first time, Ian didn’t keep repeating himself, that it was head Ian, memory Ian that was doing it, but it didn’t hurt any less. Mickey screwed his eyes shut. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You were going to have a beautiful life. You were going to have the life you deserved and then I killed you. I’m so sorry.

The front door opened. And someone stepped through.

For a terrible, beautiful second, Mickey felt so damn warm. There was no big man with a gun, no man with gloves and garbage bags to throw their bodies away. He might get out of his alive. And Ian….and Ian was going to live. Mickey’s heart stuttered awake in his chest and he wanted to fucking cry, he was so relieved. Ian was going to live.

Terry walked over to Mickey. Told him what was going to happen. Mickey avoided looking directly at his father, and kept his face blank.  
You don’t get to break me. You don’t get to break me. You don’t get to. You don’t get to, he thought.   
"You’re tough," Ian whispered, and that part was definitely something Mickey had made up, because the first time Ian had said nothing at all, definitely didn’t say that.  
Well. He said….he said that, once, the night before.  
"You’re tough, you know?" Ian whispered, his hand coming out from under Mickey’s bedsheet to clutch at his bicep. "Strong."

Mickey felt himself smiling. “You like muscles, huh?”   
This night glowed. This night felt like honey on his tongue, and there was some distant voice in his head telling him, no, you are not supposed to feel good now, you are not supposed to taste this night as the sweetest thing that’s ever been in your mouth, not supposed to remember this night and only think of the taste of Ian’s shoulder as you drop kiss after kiss on the tight muscles. You are supposed to be bitter.

Mickey couldn’t remember why.


	8. Chapter 8

"You’ve got—" Mickey spotted a trickle of ice-cream on the side of Ian’s mouth, and reached out to catch it with his thumb. Ian’s eyes dropped to Mickey’s hand, and before Mickey could pull away to wipe his thumb clean Ian had sucked it into his mouth, gently licking it clean, and then kept licking a little beyond that. When he finally let it fall from his mouth, he grabbed onto Mickey’s wrist before he could pull away, keeping his fingers close so he could kiss the tip of his thumb. "Tastes good."  
"Yeah?"   
Ian nodded and kept kissing his thumb, moving up to the knuckle and then past it to the back of his hand.   
"Better than Mr. Room Service?"  
Ian grinned. “Who, Ned?”  
"Don’t talk about him," Mickey gruffly demanded.   
"You brought it up!" Ian retorted, but his voice was teasing and his smile was fond.  
Mickey flustered himself for a second, trying to come up with something to say, but he finally just gave up and pressed their lips together, nice and soft.   
"That why you brought me ice-cream in bed?" Ian murmured, licking at Mickey’s lips. “‘Cause of what I said?"   
Mickey shrugged. He hadn’t planned it out that way or anything, but maybe he’d been thinking about it lately, sure. “Just wanted you to have it,” he finally said.  
Ian furrowed his brow. “Have what?”  
Mickey chewed his lip and avoided Ian’s eyes. “What you wanted. Or whatever.”  
Ian’s eyes had gone all glassy and starry beneath him, gazing up at Mickey with that smile that made his stomach swim. “I have that,” Ian whispered reaching up to wrap a hand around Mickey’s neck and pull him back down to kiss. “I have that right here.”  
Ian felt so real under his fingertips. His sweat felt so real. Like he was there. Like he wasn’t just a shade. A flame of panic surged into Mickey’s stomach, sick enough that he had to break away from Ian’s lips, his whole body consumed in the single thought: I don’t want to lose this. Please. Don’t make me lose this.  
"What’s wrong?" Ian whispered, fingers slipping through Mickey’s hair.  
"How could you erase this?" Mickey whispered against Ian’s shoulder, voice breaking.   
He expected Ian to immediately return with the same defense as before, that Mickey was doing it, too, but instead his hand tangled into Mickey’s hair and he pulled him closer. “I didn’t—I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t. It hurt, it hurt so bad, Mickey, knowing I wasn’t ever gonna have you. It hurt so much I thought it would kill me.”  
"You did have me, though. You always fucking had me. How could you—how—"  
"Mickey, please."  
"How couldn’t you see that? I don’t fucking get it. Years, fucking years you see everything, you know everything about me no matter how hard I try to hide it, and then now you can’t even see how much—-" Mickey broke himself off and buried his face into Ian’s neck.   
"It just hurt so much. Seeing it happen, knowing I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Before, I never—I never felt like we were gonna lose, you know? And it just hit me all at once, how fucking stupid I was, to ever think otherwise," Ian whispered hoarsely into his hair. "I couldn’t take it, feeling that way, feeling that much. I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t cut you out of me."  
Mickey laughed and started to pull away. Because of course that was how it was, of course he was just a cancer to be removed. “I feel like I’m gonna die right now, doing this. Losing this.” Like the parasite detaching from the host, Ian the whole perfect body and Mickey this disgusting little bug leeching away at him.   
Ian’s hands grabbed onto him. “So don’t do this. You can still hold on.”  
"What do you mean?"  
"The doctors. You can outrun them. Hide from them. Something." He gripped at Mickey’s bicep again. "You’re strong. You can fight this." Ian kissed Mickey’s temple, his mouth warm and so, so real. "I know you can. You can fight."  
"You’re the soldier," Mickey whispered.  
"No," Ian said, smiling as he cupped Mickey’s cheek. "It’s you."  
Mickey kissed him again, harder this time. He wouldn’t let this memory go. Not this one, not this one beautiful moment when he thought maybe they could have a life like this. No. No. That wasn’t right. He hadn’t thought it. He’d known it. Ian fit inside his bed and his body and his heart. Like Mickey’s life wasn’t a prison but a home.   
He rolled them over so that Ian was on top and pressed at his back. He’d make this memory stay, make it stronger so that they couldn’t rip it away from him. “Get inside me,” he breathed against Ian’s lips.   
"Bossy," Ian teased, kissing him deep even as he fumbled to grab the lube without pulling away from Mickey.  
Ian fucked him with slow, hard strokes, almost all the way out and then in for a minute or two, but Mickey finally locked his legs around him to keep him mostly still, just trembling above him. Mickey ran a hand down Ian’s back to calm the tremors, watching Ian’s face crumble and fall at the touch, like he wasn’t the calm collected spirit guide walking Mickey through his trial, telling him what to do, like he was his Ian, regular Ian, shaking, vulnerable Ian, his Ian, his boy. “It’s okay. I’ll keep you safe,” he grunted into Ian’s ear, pressing his ankles against Ian’s ass, urging him as deep as possible. “Nobody’s taking you away from me.”   
Ian brought their mouths together as he started to just rotate his hips without pulling more than inch out of Mickey. “I don’t wanna go,” he whispered, voice hitching in between kisses. “I don’t wanna leave, I wanna stay.”  
"You’re not goin’ anywhere," Mickey affirmed, lifting his hips off the bed to get the right angle as Ian brushed up against those good spots inside him.  
"I’m not me without you, Mick. I think I’m—Out there, the ‘real’ Ian, I’m not. I’m not me, I’m not okay, I cut you out and I feel like I’m bleeding to death," Ian admitted breathlessly.  
Ian’s blood on his face. Ian’s blood on his shoes. Ian’s blood on his chest, flashed through Mickey’s mind for a second. Just a second. “You’re not. You’re okay. I promise.”  
"You have to—You have to keep me here, with you. So that when you wake up—" Ian broke himself off, panting hard. "So when you wake up you can remind me. Who I am. Who I’m supposed to be."  
Mickey could only nod hurriedly before Ian consumed his whole world with his kiss, shoving in deep and wrapping a hand around Mickey’s cock. Mickey’s whole brain flashed white, then static-grey, then the color and the consistency of fog, warm and thick, Ian’s mouth panting on his, shaking on top of him.  
Until he wasn’t. Until he was still, motionless, until—  
Mickey opened his eyes. He was alone in bed, shivering and sweaty. He blinked.  
They were on the couch, first movie just finished, a careful distance still between their bodies. Mickey wanted to take them back to the bedroom, stay in that bedroom forever. Ian, fully clothed, still untouched, smiled at him sadly like he could read his thoughts. It didn’t work. The bedroom scene was gone now. “Thanks for kissing me,” Ian said, voice quiet, shy, back to the script.  
"Thanks for wanting me to," he mumbled, watching Ian’s lips curve into that smile again, resigned, as if he were already erased. "No. No, fuck this," Mickey muttered, grabbing Ian by his wrists and pulling them both to their feet before smashing their mouths together again. "We’re leaving."


End file.
